Forgotten Wings
by SealSong
Summary: Something I started a while ago, an idea that popped into my head during a boring bus journey. It's Seraph; but in the modern day. Drakengard has passed into memory, but the Dragons live on.
1. Prologue

_Forgotten Wings_

_Drakengard_

_Seraph is © to me_

_Drakengard and any canon characters are © Square Enix_

Prologue

It is ever the way of the mortal consciousness to haze out painful or unpleasant memories, to make of them a mere passing fantasy that grows ever fainter with each dawn. Morpheus may frown upon some so that past terrors may haunt their nightly wanderings, and lead what should be a pleasant dream into the realm of nightmares, but sunlight has the magic to dispel all night terrors.

Many dawns have passed to erase the wordless terror of a world that held its breath as the wings of doom swept overhead, passing a stark sanguine drenched reality into an uncomfortable remembering. Even now, those who remember are in turn passing into memory, Time and Plague claiming their rightful tithe from the mortal fields. Even still, all beings, Gods, Devils, and mortals alike, all each have their boundaries, their limits, and places they may not go. Time, Plague, and Death know not to seek their tithe from the blood of a beast long thought perished from the world, a beast that rules over sky and fire. Even when the mortals looked to the sky in apprehension, the Lords of sky and fire numbered few. Many believed they perished in the war with the Nameless, and thus did the Lords take their place in myth, a flaming trail left to emblazon their deeds into the history of the world.

The Red Goddess, the Arch Dragon, the Legion of Holy Dragons, and even the rebels against rebels, they all became fairytales, as did the Nameless Gods they battled.

Those who talk of Dragons are openly scorned as simpletons. In turn these 'simpletons' argue that if a Goddess is still necessary for the world to survive under a blue sky, then who is to disprove Dragons ever did fly?

Time, Death, and Plague have not reaped the tithe from Dragonkind, as they would from the mortal seed. These universal powers have left these beasts well alone, as the Lords of sky and fire are key to the balance of the world, as are the Nameless, so the lone Power that has ever accounted for a Dragon's life is War.

And though the Goddess keeps sealed the Nameless and the Holy Dragons, she cannot seal the lesser breed of Dragon, and though they now number less then a handful, they linger still, waiting, plotting, ever patient, ever vigilant for their chance.

They lost their chance to reclaim the throne of the world once. They will not fail again.


	2. Memories Become Myth

_Forgotten Wings_

_Drakengard_

_Seraph is © to me_

_Drakengard and any canon characters are © Square Enix_

Chapter One – Memories become Myth

It never ceases to provide wonder and sadness in equal amounts. Tatters of once proud and prevalent history is everywhere, but is overlooked by this new breed of 'civilized' and 'learned' Human. Science has killed all sense of mystery, and with the rise of the machine fell magic into the realms of disbelief.

There are no flowers on the graves of wonder, myths, and magic. No-one mourns them any longer, and those few that express a passing interest are pitied, and those that believe are considered mad.

She stops walking, earning her dirty looks from those behind her, but she ignores them as they pass by. Soon, they will become just memories, and they, too, will fade with the new dawn. Hardly any of them will ever make a mark on History, and still, they live on, unperturbed by this undeniable fact. She allows herself a small, sardonic smile, and passes from the stream of human movement, like salmon swimming upstream, into a doorway. Watching, a part of them, and yet not, she is used to this position. It is her life now. Never to truly walk among them, yet the Wheel turns, and she can do nought else.

Peering upwards, straining out to seek the sky, having to lean forwards to look past the slight overhang of the doorway, she feels comfort at seeing the sky, overcast, gloomy, but undeniably blue.

In the light, her pupils contract almost to slits, but she won't look away. The green of her irises looks almost luminous, and this factor alone has either attracted humans to her, the ones more inclined to listen to myths, or send them uneasily on their way, a vague sense of memory, deep in the oldest part of them stirring, and sensing danger.

Eventually, she leans back into the shade of the doorway and, turning about, she draws keys out of a pocket, unlocks the door, and walks within, shutting the door with a sense of shutting out the noise humans surround themselves with to forget what they cannot explain.

Inside was what could be termed as an 'eccentric collection of junk'. To its owner, it was a visual repository of memories, and mementos of times long past. Here, leaning against a shield inscribed with the blazing insignia of no nation recorded in current histories, a stone slab, seemingly part of an immense paving stone, inscribed with what appeared to be Nordic runes. And yet, no expert versed in the runes of the Norsemen could translate the meaning, if even they were able to lay eyes on it. She permitted none to enter here, her lair, her home. It was a place for her and her alone. No-one would be able to even fathom the depth of memories held within this singular room; she wagered any human that even tried would soon loose their sense of self. No-one could stand near the physical embodiments of a Dragon's Memories and still retain their own anima. Folding her legs and taking the paving slab into her lap, she gazed intently at the runes, carved as if by a thick blade. She knew better, for she had been the one to carve the runes. She had used her own talon, the smallest one she could use properly for such a delicate task; the one on the inside of her wing-hand. Staring at the runes, she sighed deeply, a sense of profound sorrow, as familiar as a friend to her; it had visited her often over her long, long years. Slowly, she brushed her fingers over the runes, the physical sensations of the now overlapping the memories of the feelings then.

_I, the One of Mixed Blood, the Slate-Plated Sun, known as both Seraph SealKeeper and Vrubael Tomb-Fallen, do put these Runes to my Memory, forever to be testament to my undying Will. Already have I seen many Dragons plummet from the Sky in Flame, and I have seen yet more Ascend to the Tomb, to hide behind the Sky. _

_I have neither fallen, nor Ascended. I have chosen to remain here, and fulfil my Pledge and my Pact to my own Self and to those I hold dearer to me then my own Self. _

_The Seals shall remain whole and unbroken and the Sky shall thus follow suit._

_Until the End-Times._

Finishing her recital of her pledge, she looked about her room of memories at the other objects gathered there. Some ashes, in an ornamental urn, a thick, piece of rock that shone gold, which, on close inspection, turned out to be from a creature and not born of the Earth's womb, a sword, much dented and worn, shaped like a tongue of fire, rested in a scabbard hung above a long painting depicting a large, cuboid shape, floating within a red sky, a Red Dragon aflame battling a Black Dragon with gleaming blue wings.

She drew her lips back in an expression hinting at something not-human, something feral and ancient.

Something patient, something waiting for its moment to strike, something that had stalked the earth before the bones of the world was even fully formed.

She placed the paving slab back, with a reverent, respectful air, and took the sword down from its place, nestling it under one arm after she had done so.

With a feeling much akin to waking up after a long, deep, sleep, she stirred the corners of her mind, searching for a link she had left buried many seasons ago.

She felt it in her bones, in the way her blood stirred.

The storm would come soon, and its sweeping tides would lay ruin to any that stood innocent before it.


	3. Twinned Hearts

_Forgotten Wings; Chapter Two ~ Twinned Hearts_

_Drakengard_

_Seraph and Tobias are © to me_

_Drakengard and any canon characters are © Square Enix_

_NOTE: Tobias's Mindspeech is in italics with a (( ))  
Seraph/Akila's Mindspeech is in italics with a _

Time marched by, its steady footfalls heard by all that drew breath, regardless of race, gender, rank, or one's wrongly elevated sense of importance. That was what Tobias liked most about the general way of things. It was also most convenient, then, that the stately march of Time was also the thing he loathed most. On the one hand, Time made meals for worms out of aspiring tyrants, but it did likewise to the few that made the world easier to bear. So, there were both reasons to like Time and to dislike Time. But Tobias would give Time his due; Time had not yet ravaged his, Tobias's, person.  
Then again, that might have something to do with exchanging hearts with a Dragon.  
He didn't stop walking, though he did take the time to wonder where that thought had come from. It had been at least eighty years ago since he had last seen the Dragon and since they had parted last he hadn't thought much about her at all. It wasn't as though they were avoiding each other; it was simply to avoid showing their hand before preparations were complete. That, and to avoid rousing suspicion; for example, if anyone figured out their pact and tried to use it against them say, by capturing Tobias and holding him, there wouldn't be any chance of stopping the Dragon from showing herself in her true form, and poof. Their cover would be blown, and a whole lifetime or two of building a false identity would be wasted.  
So, here he was, trying to avoid thinking about the Dragon when suddenly he felt a most annoying sensation in the back of his head that left him wishing he could open his skull and scratch his brain.

Eyes widening, he darted glances about him. Had some minion of the Nameless guessed who he was, and was even now trying to invade his mind? No-one nearby looked even remotely like the evil-demon-cultist type, save maybe the one guy accosting people and trying to make them answer endless questions for a survey. Sagging onto a bench, Tobias slapped a hand into his forehead, even as the itching intensified. No wonder he'd been thinking of the Dragon! It was none other than she that was trying to speak to him now. Frowning as he tried to recall the process of mindspeech, he laboriously lowered the barriers about his mind and reach out to the Dragon.  
_((…Dragon…?))_

_Who else do you know that can speak to you inside that cavern you call a mind? Yes, of course it is me!  
((It's been eighty years, dammit, so forgive me if I'm a bit, oh, cautious, of suddenly having a Dragon scratching at the back-door of my mind like a cat asking to be let in!))_

_No respect! I never get any respect…_

_((You did just barge in unannounced. You could have called beforehand and warned me.))  
…I do not trust technology. _  
Tobias rubbed at his temple. He felt a headache coming on, but more from the trend of conversation rather than the act of it.  
_((You broke that phone I got you, didn't you?))  
Such accusations! I took great care of it!  
((Up until…?))_

A mental sigh, behind which Tobias could perfectly imagine the Dragon's eyes gleaming green, scaled face somehow conveying emotions perfectly.

_I dropped it in the pond. Water does not seem to work well with any of this new fangled Technomancy. But that does not matter! Where are you now? _

_((A bench near my house. Why?))_

_Where?_ Tobias had the unsettling sensation of the Dragon rummaging through his thoughts until she pinpointed the exact place she wanted, much like a person flicking through a photo album._  
Aha! I know where! Wait there, I will be right along. _

_((How…?))_

_Will you recognise me? Pah, use your head for once! We are Pacted; Hearts speak to Hearts. _

And suddenly, she was gone. Tobias let out a long breath and sagged back, looking up at the sky.  
So, she was real, and it wasn't all a bad dream.  
Sometimes, he wondered if he were mad, and then the Dragon went and did something like this, and it proved that yes, he was completely bonkers.  
Still, it sure beat having to listen out for Time's march.


End file.
